FEAR PROFITEERS: My colleague Michelle Minton has an extensive report out today detailing the links between public health advocacy groups and government agencies that result in unfounded public-private scare campaigns about vaping products:

Unfortunately, promoting public health is not the sole priority of health charities. Fundraising is also a primary objective for activist groups. The most effective way to raise revenue and influence is to sound the alarm in news headlines about an urgent health problem, whether real or exaggerated.

That problem is compounded by the fact that health charities and government agencies work together to raise one another’s influence and, ultimately, increase each other’s bottom line. Anti-smoking and health advocacy groups, like the American Cancer Society and the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, seek taxpayer-funded grants from government agencies, like the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), and the National Institutes of Health. In turn, the taxpayer-funded activists lobby Congress to increase funding for the government agencies that bestow grants on their organizations. These incentives can distort the debate around important public health issues like smoking cessation.

And students of the economics of regulation will not be surprised to hear that alongside these baptists is a bunch of bootleggers.

The result of this self-interested campaign is the FDA’s crackdown on products that have helped many thousands, including people in my own family, stop smoking. Read Michelle’s full report here.